


Compass Rose

by hellkitty



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Scars, Temperature Play
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-25
Updated: 2015-07-12
Packaged: 2018-04-06 03:22:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4206063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellkitty/pseuds/hellkitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So, hey, there's like a ton of fantastic Ace/Furiosa prompts on the kink meme and I, being a greedy, greedy critter, want to write them ALL but also not, you know, like, dissuade anyone else from writing what is apparently one of my many OTPs (because I love my OTPs but I also love other people loving my OTPs). </p>
<p>So geniusgirl here got the idea 'what if I grabbed them all and shoved them together and made one long delicious awesome story of all of them, sort of like how I make shakshuka but with porn'?  Shhhh, the analogy works in my head, okay? </p>
<p>So, have some multichapter to-be-added-to yeah-there's-actually-a-story-arc-too goodness. </p>
<p>Tags for characters and content added as needed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“I want their ACE!”  The War Boy bellowed, pointing his challenge as his crewmates behind him cheered.  

Ace had kind of hoped to go unseen, unnoticed in this. This was a thing for the younger War Boys, the ones with more energy than sense.  He was just here to watch out for his crew. Or so he’d thought.  He grunted, elbowing himself off the wall. Couldn’t back down from a challenge, even if it was in a game. Especially in a game.

“Hey,” one of his crew called out. “If you lose, maybe the Imperator will massage out all your bruises!”  

Ace vaulted over the railing above the fighting pit.  “Make that a ‘when’ and ‘I win’,” he called back.  Because he wasn’t going to go into this to lose.

“You’re on.”

Furiosa’s voice, and he turned, and saw her leaning on the railing above. She didn’t normally stick around for these things. Wonder what brought her here?

“Heard and witnessed,” Ace called back.

“Witnessed!” his crew echoed, gleefully.

“Sorry,” he gave a half shrug at his opponent, a bruiser of a War Boy from Imperator Cable’s crew. “Looks like you’re gonna have to lose.” Because half of any battle was attitude, he figured.  

All right, a third, he revised, as the War Boy, Grit, he thought his name was, rammed a hammy fist into his chin.  One third attitude.  

One third being able to take a hit.

And one third, well....

One third was knowing how to throw on a killer joint lock. Ace dodged a second punch, aiming for his belly, clamping his hands over the wrist and pulling Grit forward, swinging the arm back and around in the socket, kicking his feet up to jerk Grit off balance and landing on the ground.

Grit howled, struggling, trying to find some way to twist free, then failing that, to find a way to loosen Ace's grip.

Ha. Not a chance, pup, Ace thought.  Didn't earn rank here 'less you knew how to fight, and fight smart.  That's what he always told his crew. Fight smart.

And he heard them cheering, a roar of sound overhead, chanting and yelling, and then Grit gave up, giving in, his free hand slapping the ground in submission.

And just like that, Ace dropped his grip, rolling off to one side to rise, taking a moment to rub his jaw. . "Good hit, that one," he said, offering his other hand to Grit, helping him get up.  

"Not good enough," Grit frowned. Ace knew what he was thinking--that he'd been bested, in under a minute, and not a mark on him.

"Think of it this way, War Boy.  You took on our crew's best.  Takes balls right there."  He slapped his hand on the shoulder he hadn't been torquing, heading back to his crew's side of the arena, moving right below where the Imperator herself was watching. It was a very short jump, and he grabbed the railing, hauling himself up.  

"Gonna claim that reward, you know," he said, swinging a leg over.

"Really? It was over so fast I don't think you got any bruises."

Ace tipped his head back, as if thinking. "Got some on my ass from that landing, I think."  All right, not just to pretend think, but because he knew he couldn't stifle the grin after the words for too long.  

And he expected--and deserved, he figured--the punch on his arm, one of those knuckle forward jabs of hers.

"Oh, got another one right there, Ace. It's an epidemic."  

He grinned down at her, rubbing his bicep. "Maybe I oughta go quarantine myself."  

"Probably best." She looked down at her hands spread on the railing, badly feigning casual. "Ten minutes. Don't be late."

Well then, it was official.  

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> not entirely gratuitous sex.

 

Ace was never late to anything except his appointment with Valhalla.  That one, he was fine to keep on rescheduling.  But this? Yeah, you don't keep the Imperator waiting, especially not Furiosa.  He tapped on the door with about fifteen seconds left.  No sense appearing too eager.  

Still, a little eager never hurt.  

He heard her ‘open’ through the door, stepping in. “Here to cla--” And his shoulders hit the wall, driven back by her hands, knocking the words from his throat.  She nuzzled against his chin, and he could feel her body press against his, leaning against him, pressing him against the wall.  “Good win out there,” she murmured.

“I was motivated,” he said, bringing his hands up to land on her shoulders, letting them slide across. He wasn’t any damn good at this part of it, all the nice words, flirtation, but he tried.  And he kind of liked how it felt, a little tingly-nervous and embarrassed, like he didn’t want anyone to overhear. Made it private, you know? Special.

“You’d’ve won anyway,” she stepped back, letting her gaze slide down his body. “Now, though, you’re wearing way too many clothes.”  

...he should definitely leave the flirting to her. She was much better at it. And you didn’t leave her waiting--not if you knew what was good for you.  He bent down, unlacing his boots, kicking out of them, twitching as he felt her fingertips, light and teasing, tracing the muscles of his back, a kind of touch that almost tickled...but not quite. A kind of tickle that seemed to ripple through his belly like the way the ground would shake when you fired up an engine.  Ace shucked off his trousers, hastily, letting the heavy pouches and bands fall to the ground, his cock already stirring against his thigh.

“Well,” Furiosa said as he straightened. “Someone’s eager.”  

He shrugged. “Like I said. Motivated.” If he was supposed to be embarrassed about being turned on right now, yeah, chalk it up to a character flaw. He wasn’t.  

“Have to find a use for all that extra energy, Ace,” she said, pulling him toward her bed. “You’re making the rest of the crew look bad.”

“Sounds like their problem.”  And they weren’t here, so excuse him if he didn’t give too many damns about them right now. Later, maybe. Right now though….

“I think maybe you need to lie down.”  

Like he was going to say ‘no’ to that.  He settled himself down on the bed, feeling the luxury of sheets underneath his bare skin, settling back and wriggling his shoulders against the fabric.  "Lyin' down," he reported.  

"Good War Boy."  She leaned closer and for a moment he thought she was going to pat his head, but instead, she reached up for something behind him and then she grabbed his wrists, and he could feel a sort of metallic pressure as something clicked around him, pinning his arms overhead.  

"Don't remember this bein' part of the package." He twisted his wrists, experimentally.

"It's not," she said, reasonably, reaching behind him again. "It's so you can't remove this."

He managed half a protest before she covered his eyes with the band of cloth, tying it against the side of his head.  

This was...new.  But not bad--at least, his cock sure didn't seem to object. He could feel it stiffening, rolling up his belly.  

"Better not plan on tickling me," he said. "I can still pull you into a leg guard."  

"You could always try," she said.  "But I wasn't planning on 'tickling'."  

That sounded a little dire. Didn't it?  Even with the velvet smoothness in her voice--or maybe because of it--that sounded like it could go dark places.  And apparently something on his face registered that, because he heard her laugh, bright and clear and all too fuckin' rare, if you asked him, and he knew it was a stupid thought to even think. She'd never hurt him, not seriously. A few punches here and there, but that was just the way people were in the Citadel.  He felt some of the tight nervousness leave his body, as though draining from his joints, but it left behind a sort of giddy, tingling energy.  

"Right," she said, briskly, "where to start."

Ace took a breath, trying to figure out where she was, what she was doing, trying to twist his head in a way to peek under a fold of the fabric, but no such luck.  

He felt something, warm and liquid, patter against his chest, drop after drop, and then her hand, her good hand, splaying out, smearing it over his skin. And then he felt a weight over his thighs, and the leather of her boot against his shin, as she settled herself to straddle his thighs. Both of her hands moved over him, then, the metal one cool and less supple, tracing the lines of lean muscle on his torso, then skimming down the sensitive strip on his sides, but it wasn't--somehow--ticklish. It felt vulnerable and exposed and trusting. Trusting, he thought.  And he was going to say something about it, when she leaned forward, sliding her hands up his body, and then along the undersides of his arms, leaning forward so her rank insignia's chain fringes teased his groin.

"Beautiful arms," she said, and some of the sly tease had gone from her voice, replaced with a kind of vulnerability of her own.

He snorted, tipping his face to where he thought her head would be.  "All scarred up," he argued. "That one--"

"From the time the Rig caught fire. I remember."  And he felt a sudden warm circle of a kiss on the scar, the skin mottled and twisted, sensitive the way new desperate skin sometimes was. "And this one--" Another kiss along his tricep.

"Damn Buzzard dart."  It was hard to feel angry, hard to feel hardened, hard to feel anything but sort of deliciously slippery and warm, with the way she was leaning over him, close enough for him to smell her, with the way he could feel a softness that could only be her lips over the shrapnel scars that peppered his forearm, following the damage over to his face below the blindfold.  Ace had never been a pretty man--thin lips, blob of a nose, even before the lumps started twisting around his throat, before the scars had slewed his mouth off to one side. Never been easy on the eyes, not like she was, and definitely not 'beautiful'.  But he wasn't going to argue with her about it, not right now, when her soft lips parted over his and he could feel her tongue flick gently over his mouth, before trailing down his throat, nuzzling even against the swelling and twisted skin.  

His hands shifted against the steel around his wrists, longing to touch, to feel the leather around her waist, the soft crop of her hair, the fascinating lines of her body. And he squirmed, getting his feet down, bare and vulnerable, too, trying to lift his hips, arc the thighs she was straddling, to get her closer.  

She sat back, sat up, her heels hooking under his raised thighs. “Impatient, Ace?”

“All that energy you think I have.” Entirely unapologetic.  And also an attempt at a diversion, twisting his hips under her, trying to edge her closer, though honestly the feel of her strong thighs around his was not exactly calming him down.  

“Am I going to have to get you to behave?”

“Might have to. ‘Specially if you keep me ti--” the word cut off with a gasp, her oiled-up hand wrapping around his cock, pulling along it. His hips followed it up, trying to prolong the touch, every bit of his awareness focused on that contact, the slick slide of her hand up the shaft.  

“Better already,” Furiosa observed. And then he felt her move forward, the chains teasing over his belly as she leaned, reaching for...something.  She gave a soft chuckle that seemed to tease over his skin, and then she wriggled down his legs, chains dancing down his thighs, her hand still idly teasing his cock.  And then a pause, and he could feel her breath cooling the warm oil on the head, and a rising surge of anticipation--she was drawing it out, making him wait.  

And then cold. Biting cold closing over the head of his cock, and he could feel her tongue, cold, too, teasing, tasting his skin.  

And then whatever was chilling her mouth warmed, and he felt the temperature shift, heat blazing through his body, every nerve in his cock vividly awake.  

“...could take off the blindfold.” He’d just...you know..float that as a suggestion. Because he’d just about kill to see this right now.  

He felt her mouth slide off him, and immediately regretted talking at all. “I could, yes. I won’t.” And then she moved again, and another pause, and he could feel his pulse throbbing in his cock, and he was trying, somehow, to map her body by where he could feel pressure and heat against him, the drag of fabric, and the light eddy of her breath.

Another line of cold, tracing along where his thigh joined his body, and he felt a melting frigid trickle slide down around the curve of his inner thigh.  He felt his whole body shiver, from the cold slide along his skin.  

“Like that?”

He felt a matching coolness on his other thigh, breath shuddering from his lungs.  

“Cold,” he managed, guardedly. Neither yes nor no. But yes, and he knew the way his body shifted under hers that she knew, too.

“Yeah,” she said, her words strangely muffled,  “I had to chip it off the freon system on the War Rig.” Which was way sexier an idea than it should be. He might never look at the reefer unit the same way again.

And then the cold closed over his cock again, and Ace cursed, writhing on the sheets, as she slid lower, taking more of him into her cold mouth, and he felt a heat gradient, cooler lips, warmer further in, moving along him, slowly, way too slowly, like a slow, cold torture. He jerked at the cuffs binding his wrists, feeling them bruise against bone, the pain of that somehow muddling with, mixing with, the rising desperate want in his body.  

“Shhhh, shhhhh,” she lifted her mouth just long enough to whisper. And to take more of the freon-frigid ice in her mouth, apparently. “Be still.”   
It was less a suggestion than an order, and Ace felt his breath hissing through his teeth, fingers knotting together over his head, as he tried to force himself still. He flattened his hips to the ground with all the effort he had--every muscle going taut, as though squeezing tight against the alternating waves of cold and heat that seemed to climb upward, pulling him along with them like a forceful, rising tide or a wildfire, cold and heat, water and fire helixing together around him, through him. He wished he could see something, anything, other than the black band of fabric, and his hands almost burned with a need to touch her, get more contact with her beyond her mouth, her thighs squeezing over his, until his tense frame couldn’t hold any more and he jolted upward, thrumming like a high tension line, and he felt the heat of his own semen inside her mouth, almost scalding against the cold.

He shuddered, groaning as his body fell into a kind of heavy softness, feeling a matching throb from his spent cock and his bruised wrists, so caught up in those, and the heady swirl of bliss filling him like a flooded engine, that he didn’t feel her move, until he felt the scrape of her teeth along the underside of his cock, the shock of pain like a chaser.

He felt his arms go slack, the metal cuffs dropping off his wrists, and then her weight, lying alongside him. He lifted an edge of the blindfold, sweeping it off his eyes, and there was her face, with a coy, smug grin.  “I take care of those bruises for you?”

Right now, he couldn’t feel anything but that kind of animal, sated heaviness, the kind that wanted to pull you right under to sleep when you most wanted to stay awake so you didn’t miss anything, like the way the light caught like a halo against her hair, and the way the fabric of her pants felt against the thigh he flung across her hips, rolling onto his side to face her. And especially not the smile.  “All better,” he said.  

She gave a soft sound that might have been agreement, her fingers dancing over his upraised shoulder, till it found the smooth triangle of a scar. Her fingertips flirted with it, tracing the boundaries idly, as he turned to look, then back at her face. “Fell on a--”

Her hand dropped to his mouth, silencing him. “It’s part of you,” she said. “Unique.  I like it.”  

He had to blink back a sudden wash of...something he felt, something that stung in his eyes like sand, pulling her closer, curling her head to rest on his neck, the good side, just, well, maybe trying to kind of hold that those words, and what they meant, between them and their beating hearts.


	3. Clutching the Short Straw

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From Marillion: That Time of the Night. 
> 
> To up my stylistics game (because god knows my style game is absolutely fucking tragic), I figured I'd start messing with some of those stupid pretentious rhetorical devices. Because I had to learn them in undergrad, and now you have to suffer. Or...something like that. IDK. Anyway, especially notice the zeugma/grammatical syllepsis in the last line. 
> 
> Also, some OCs.

He waited an hour, letting himself sink just to the froth and edge of sleep, but no further, listening to her breath deepen and ease, before he pulled himself away, sore with regret.  He couldn't stay. Not the whole night.  It seemed too much, crossing a boundary of too great an intimacy to stay the whole night. 

So, an hour then.  Just long enough and not long enough both at once, and he was moving silently, dousing the light, and pausing just long enough to tug his trousers up over his hips before slipping out the door, boots in hand.  

He should check on their crew, anyway, he told himself, pausing at the door to the crew's bay just long enough to pull on his boots, yanking up the speedlaces into fast, practiced knots.  

Ace walked past his own bay--a small alcove, really, with his extra gear tidily stowed--by the door, and tried not to think about what the War Boys thought as they walked by its obvious emptiness.  

The other bays weren't empty at all. A few were missing one or two members, gone off to celebrate with some privacy, the rest of the bays littered with War Boys and their gear, sprawled and messy.  Live hard, die young--he thought, and the thought was gunpowder gritty--and leave a mess.  

Maybe it was a way of marking the world, making sure someone would remember you after you died, at least for a little bit. At least while they fought over your spare boots. 

When you got old, Ace thought, you just wanted to go like rain.  Disappear, no one grieving, no one missing you.  What was to miss about him, anyway?  

One of the boys shifted in his sleep, hand falling on the scarred chest, knees flopping over. It was always, always a bit of a shock to the eye, to see them naked--the almost fragile thinness of their ankles, the lean bend of the knee.  

He grunted, turning on his heel, heading toward the infirmary.  It had been a quick run today, small caravan, but they'd had a weapons dealer in their midst, and the fight had been scrappier than it should have been. 

He'd think of that later--what they didn't see, what they should have seen. And how to see it next time.  

No one had gotten their wheel to Valhalla, at least, but a couple were going to have some rough days ahead. He nodded to the Red Hand on duty before finding his boys, steeling his face.  Cam had caught some shrapnel to the face; Hex had his arm crushed in a rollover--one of the perils of being a Lancer. And Cam was mercifully asleep, half his face covered in bandage, breath so light and shallow Ace found himself lightening his steps, moving as quietly as he could past him. There’d be time enough in the morning for him. 

Hex, though, saw him coming, his grey eyes following Ace’s approach like targeting sights, body taut with pain.  His good hand caught at Ace’s wrist, and Ace could feel the echo of a bruise there, from earlier, like a good memory flaring up to be shadowed.  “I’m done for,” Hex croaked. “I know it.” 

“Don’t know shit,” Ace retorted.  “Just stuck in neutral right now.”

Hex shifted his arm, bound with steel splints. “This isn’t going to heal straight.”

“You know that? You a red hand now?” Ace stared him down until he shook his head, sullenly. “Then trust ‘em to do their job.”  

“But…” It came out half-volume, a gesture of protest that withered  under Ace’s look. 

“You’re just giving into pain right now.”  He knew it wasn’t true; despair had its own poison, one that every injury was laced with out here--the dreaded fear of a coward’s death, wringing life out on some unnoticed floor.  But he knew that they needed something to cling to, a ladder rung to haul themselves out of the blackness. “Gonna have a rough night tonight.” No sense denying that. “That’s your fight.”  Because you had to do it alone--the demons in your mind no one else could wrestle but you. Sometimes Ace wished he could, because he’d been down there so deep himself he could navigate blind.  “Just remember. I’m going to be back in the morning for a report.”  Another rung, another handhold, he hoped.  

Hex nodded, unsure, his fingers loosening their grip.  

“Besides,” Ace added. “Maybe you don’t need a good throwing arm as a driver.”  And that was it, a nail of confidence in Hex’s wavering spirit, the dangling bait of promotion. 

Ace felt a little greasy inside.  Because he had faith in his crew, but he knew that faith had its limits, and death was one of them, and pain and fever and the long hours of the night were its recon runners.  Still, every fight was uncertain; victory was never a sure thing till it was over.  And the best you could do was to go down fighting. 

He should check the vehicles, he knew. He should head down to the repair bay and see how much damage was done, what was going to be offline and for how long, but he didn’t want to see the grimy red, or smell the fear and pain of old blood. Not right now.  There was time enough tomorrow for all that, time enough to stretch the start of the night--where he could still feel the Imperator’s hands on him, his own blood singing like life and air and freedom--and those still, hulking, iron-stinking reminders of death.  

He slipped back into his room, stripping off his trousers and hanging them on a hook, before curling onto his side on his own bed, minus the soft sheets of the Imperators. 

That wasn’t the only thing it was lacking, he thought, settling himself, willing his body to sleep, curled in a mirror of where he’d been an hour ago, feeling his arms too empty and heart too full. 


	4. Confab

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Still working on the plot to schmoop ratio here. Have some plot.

Furiosa woke up a second before the knock on her door, that kind of wary, animal sense she’d developed in her years in the Citadel.  She had just registered that she was still in her clothes from yesterday, dusty from the road, before she heard the voice follow, a small, high voice. “Imperator?” 

One of the Pups.  

She opened the door, and, sure enough, a Pup barely up to her waist, bouncing on bare feet. “What?”

“Chief Imperator’s called a meeting.  ‘Bout those captives you brought in.” 

Shit.  That didn’t sound like good news.  “Right, got it.”  She started ticking off a list of things she’d have to do to look presentable, or at least like she didn’t sleep in her clothes. 

The Pup lingered in the doorway.

“What?” 

The Pup ducked back, as though dodging a blow. “C-can’ I touch it?” 

There was no need to ask what ‘it’ was. She flexed her left hand, as though thinking. “Why?”

“...cause it’s good luck?” He didn’t seem quite so sure now. 

“And why do you need good luck?” 

“We’re getting sorted out soon,” the Pup said. 

“Yeah?”  She ran her good hand through her hair, feeling grit and sand deep in it.  She itched all over, and she wanted a bath, but there was no time for that.  She couldn’t exactly regret last night, warm skin under her palm, muscles shifting and twisting under her.  But she could still wish she’d not fallen asleep. 

Or not woken up alone, at least.  

“I want to be a lancer!” the Pup said, proudly, finding his confidence. “And maybe one day I’ll be on your crew!”  His eyes were bright, shiny, the eyes you used to look at a hero. 

She didn’t feel like a hero. She felt dirty and tired and...kind of alone.  And she wished there was something better for a little boy to want to be.  

This was the world, though. This was the world they all lived in, and living still meant something. Sometimes she wasn’t sure what. But she saw the fervid light of hope and want in the Pup’s eyes, and anything that darkened that light...she couldn’t bear it. She held out her left hand, turning it over and opening the palm, spreading the fingers.  

The Pup reached out a hand, almost warily, as though afraid he would break it, or the other way around.  He brushed cautious fingertips along the digits, the hook on her middle finger, the metal mesh covering the actuators, his eyes wide and fascinated.  

It was such a small thing to do, and she felt bad for even questioning him now. “Grab on,” she said, as if this would help, somehow, as if it would erase the need for the hope for a chance to die. 

“Yeah?”

“Go on.”  

He didn’t need another hint: his hands closed around it, one grasping the outer forearm strut, the other in the palm. She lifted up, raising him off the ground easily, and his grin as his toes left the dirt seemed to burn too bright in her eyes, like staring into the sun. 

*

The High Imperator wasn’t a patient man. No one faulted him for it, though, first, because no one had the guts--he hadn’t gotten his rank by being shy of fighting--and second, because no one envied his position, bearing the brunt of Immortan’s wrath when anything went awry. 

Still, it wasn’t good to vex him by keeping him waiting, so Furiosa just took enough time to dunk her head in water, shake loose the dust and sand and grit, before heading down to the meeting room.  

The Immortan himself was there, which added a ten pound weight to the discomfort already pooling in her belly.  He lounged in his chair like a throne, but Furiosa could feel his eyes, like a predator’s, missing nothing. And they fell on her with that lingering rolling look that always made her skin crawl. 

On a seat behind him, perching like he felt the whole thing was going to collapse under his weight, sat the Inquisitor--weed thin and wasted, his entire lap swallowed by the heavy black gloves he wore to hide his mangled hands. 

Not good signs. Either of them. 

The High Imperator nodded at her, a gesture that acknowledged her presence, but tipped off nothing, impossible to read. 

“It was your crew that brought them in,” Joe said, suddenly.  

“Yesterday? Yes, my crew.”  What was this all about? 

“Where.” The High Imperator tossed down a map, parchment flopping open. 

She moved forward, looking. “Here.” She plunked a finger down, between two stone ridges. “We were about an hour out.” 

“And they were coming…?”

“Straight for us, this way.” 

The High Imperator grunted, looking over at Joe.  

“It’s like the Inquisitor said.”  

The Inquisitor shrugged, like he’d never doubted it, and was almost surprise they were coming around to it.  “It means the rest of what they say is true.”

“Possibly,” Joe said, shortly. “Possibly true.” 

“Possibly true,” the Inquisitor echoed, gracefully. “Possibly enough for us to consider action.”

“What’s ‘possibly true’?” Imperator Cable scowled. Apparently he didn’t like being kept in the dark any more than Furiosa did.  

“Scorpions,” the High Imperator said. “And they’re running from something.”

That was a double-blow of bad news.  Scorpions normally kept to their turf--the softer sands of the South.  And if something was spooking them…? 

“Do we know what?”

The Inquisitor shook his head, looking a little disgruntled that he had to admit to not knowing something. “All the knew was the Scorpions.  To know what’s behind them…?” He dropped off with a shift of one of his hands, enervated and heavy.   Scorpions didn’t like leaving survivors. Even their own. 

“Maybe they ran blind,” Cable said, staring at the map. “Some rough terrain they’d pass through.” 

The Inquisitor slid off his chair, moving forward, one gloved, bent finger tracing over where Furiosa had placed the caravan.  "We need more information," he said, and somehow it sounded sinister in his slightly wheezing voice.  

"Imperator Cable," the Immortan spoke, leaning forward. "Send out a recon team. See if you can get some...information." Meaning human captives, alive, ready to be handed over to the Inquisitor's workshop.  Better him than me, Furiosa thought. 

"Imperator Furiosa," Joe turned to her, his face alien and unreadable behind his mask, "How many days will you need for repairs?" 

"Three, to be able to run a light recon," she said.  They always inventoried on the way back to the Citadel, she and Ace. Something to occupy the mind on a long roll home.  "If we're arming for war...," the way he leaned forward gave her all the answer she wanted, and she felt that tight flutter in her chest whenever she thought about something that could hurt her crew, "A week."  

"See that it's done, Imperator.  This Citadel, our home, our sanctuary, must be preserved from the likes of the Scorpions." 

And as much as she hated to admit it, as much as it stuck in her throat like chicken bones, she had to agree.    



	5. Separate Ways

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NOW for the schmoop like a delicious candy prize. Or something. Angsty schmoop. Nom nom.

Morsov...wasn’t quite sure how this had happened, but he wasn’t about to ask any questions, even if he could manage to make, you know, actual words. He’d been settling in for the night, after Winch had rubbed some liniment into his shoulders, sore from the three solid hours of lancer drills Ace had assigned, and the heat was soaking in, soothing the sore, overtaxed muscles, when Ace had kicked the sole of his boot and told him to go report to the Imperator. 

He'd tried to ask, 'report what?' but the look on Ace's face was the kind that said any questions would probably be answered...painfully.  Who knew what was up with him, anyway? Morsov really didn't want to think about the old man right now, not with the Imperator's left knee hooked over his shoulder, so he could feel the whole back of her sleek thigh against his chest and belly, her other heel hooking over his hips.  

She was warm and soft and slick and squeezing against him, demanding more of him, and more, driving him harder against her, inside her. Her nails raked a track of parallel lines down his back: he could feel the sting and prickle of blood drawn, the heat rising in welts, adding fire to his lust. 

She’d looked a little disappointed when she’d opened the door, like she’d expected someone else. Ace, probably, but she’d bitten back something she was going to ask, and pulled him inside. 

She was an Imperator. They always demanded your best. And Morsov gave as best he could till his body gave out, the sharp, fast demanding strokes ending with a jolt, and then three, four, longer, slower ones, as his hips trembled against her, spilling himself inside her.  

She hadn't said to stop, so he regathered himself, pushing past the thick, plush curtain of chemicals and pleasure, trying to recapture the tempo, even as the thrusts juddered against his cock, tingling and hypersensitized.  

And then she came, a hard buck and a hissed breath, her legs clutching at him so strongly that he couldn't move.  

Not that he wanted to, not that he wanted to do anything more than stay right exactly there, feeling her thighs circling his hips, her body fluttering around his cock. He could feel the scratches on his back, still, long deep marks he'd wear for days, and the thought filled him with a kind of hot pride, even as she wriggled under him, easing him out of her with one last wince and a sense of spilled liquid. 

He eased onto his side, ribs still heaving from exertion; his own orgasm washing back over him, as she got up from the stone berth. He watched her walk across the room, his eyes level with her thighs, fascinated by the play of muscle and satin skin.  He half--more than half--expected her to order him to leave, and he was trying to gather himself, to scrape up some energy and strength from an exhausted, spent body, when she dowsed the light.  

Darkness filled the space between them, and he waited for her voice, but there was nothing, just the long, still pause of eyes getting used to the dark, and then he could see her walk back over, the dark delta at the join of her thighs, her legs pale flames, and then she settled herself next to him, as he lay on his side, hooking her knees up over his thighs, and letting him curl his head down onto the soft fabric over her shoulder.  

He waited a few more minutes, feeling her skin, smelling the salt-sex scent of her, waiting for her to tell him to leave, and then he lost the ability to wait, the power to hold back, and loosened his body against hers, sighing softly over her bound breast, surrendering to sleep. 

***

Ace could feel the stone beneath him warm, even as his own body shivered, slickdamp with sweat.  One benefit of the Citadel’s heavy stone: it never got hot in here, not like it was out there. Sometimes, the cool air and cooler stone was enough to take the worst edge off the night sweats.

Sometimes it didn’t even come close.  

He’d wanted to go to her tonight. No, more than want--he’d needed it, and it was that feeling, the hard sharp edge of need, that had etched the scowl into his face when he’d sent Morsov off. Morsov was young, healthy, goodlooking, and still eager to show himself as an asset. He was better for the Imperator tonight, and Ace was better here. 

He was. He would be.  

You couldn’t let yourself need anything. He’d learned that lesson over and over again, a lifetime of reinforcement. The moment you felt you needed--you couldn’t function without--anything, was the moment it was snatched away from you.  

It was a lesson, he knew, in strength.  He’d come to figure that out, after losing again and again everything he’d ever thought he’d needed, and still lived. Lived, yes, but a little harder, a little hollower, each time. It was like fighting: you break a bone, and it heals stronger than before. Though maybe not quite as straight, and aching for years. 

This was an experiment, maybe. That was how he could put it in the best light: an experiment, an attempt to see that if he could stay on the ‘want’ side of this line, if he could extend, elongate the stage, never quite crossing over, then maybe he could have something good for just a little bit longer.  And maybe this pain--arms aching to feel her smooth curves, all his skin feeling the weightlessness of solitude like a rasping--maybe this was pain doled out in mites, small portions to pay for a good thing, instead of the lump sum at the end.  

It was a theory. It was a theory worth testing because going down that road again, that road of need and desperation and loss, was too much for an old man, who felt how little left he had, who knew, at some level, it was ridiculous, stupid, foolishness to even dare feel anything for someone young enough to be his--

No. Wasn’t even going to go there, not even in thought. He jerked himself back like squeezing the brake pedal on a motorbike, sudden and hard. 

He shifted against the stone, feeling sweat slide off his belly as he moved, droplets caught in the tumors on this throat like catchbasins, like reminders of how...stupid the whole thing was. It galvanized his resolve, this kind of self-mockery, and he forced himself still again, concentrating on breathing, trying not to think, and above all, as the minutes stretched into hours that drew themselves in smudgy lines of light from the wandering moon through his window, trying not to notice how long it had been, and Morsov was not coming back. 


End file.
